Obama political arm strikes fear in GOP

Many of those voters didn’t turn out in the 2010 midterms. And without Obama on the ballot, Democrats worry many of them will stay home next year. Keeping those voters engaged, they say, will take two years of pushing, prodding and cajoling.

“If OFA energizes and engages voters across this country, including young people, unmarried women and minority voters, in support of the president’s agenda, our campaigns will make sure those voters know where their Republican member of Congress stands when it comes time to vote,” said Jesse Ferguson, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee deputy executive director. “We welcome any education and mobilization campaigns like theirs that keep these critical voters engaged.”

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Appearing at a POLITICO-sponsored forum just prior to the January Inauguration, Cutter, the Obama campaign official, argued that OFA had the potential to rally the voters who had handed the president a second term.

“This particular organization, the way it’s organized, legally, we can’t participate in elections,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that the issues we’re organizing around won’t mobilize the American people to vote for things. To vote for that economy we’ve been working toward, to vote for immigration reform … I think we can affect elections even if legally we can’t be involved with them for this particular organization.”

Still, some Republicans are skeptical that OFA will be much of a difference-maker.

Brock McCleary, a former NRCC deputy political director, argued that the Obama political arm was a force in 2008 and 2012 because it had a figure to rally around — the president himself. Without Obama running, he said, the organization’s influence will be diluted in 2014.

“I think it’s in the Republicans’ interests to take it very seriously, but I think there are limitations to what impact it could have without President Obama on the ballot,” McCleary said.

For Democrats to win in 2014, they’ll need to play offense on predominantly Republican turf — in other words, districts where the president’s policies often aren’t very popular. Voters in those areas might not like what OFA is selling.

And by the time the midterms role around, some Republicans argue, it’s a good bet swing district voters will have grown weary of the president and the policies his political arm is promoting.

“Sure, he has a formidable machine,” said Brad Todd, a Republican strategist and a veteran of congressional races. “But I wouldn’t go jump off a bridge or anything because the president’s political operation still exists.”